What is Dialer Software?
February 05, 2013
By Amanda Ciccatelli
, TMCnet Web Editor
In a perfect call center, call volumes would be predictable, every single contact would be handled quickly, and you would always know the right balance of inbound and outbound agents. But, as everyone in the industry knows, call volumes fluctuate weekly, daily and even hourly, so the “perfect call center” is just a fantasy. But luckily, modern day call center technology has made dialer software available to help make the call center as perfect as possible.
Dialer software, an automated telephone dialing system, enables agents to drastically increase their live connections. In fact, dialer software has the ability to quickly make multiple outbound calls, pulling from a database of phone numbers that connect to communication and telephone lines. It connects to multiple agents, has more outbound lines to dial on than agents using the system and dials phone numbers in such a way to predict when a telemarketer will be available.
Ultimately, the configuration and the amount of agents using the system will affect how many calls the dialer software places per hour. It uses statistical algorithms to cut the amount of time agents spend waiting between conversations, while eliminating the chance of someone answering when no agent is available to speak to them. It also takes into account many factors including the average call length, average number of rings before a customer picks up the phone, percentage of dialed calls that are answered, average length of talk time on each call, number of agents using the system and desired abandonment rate.
Additionally, dialer software enables the ability to either decrease or increase the call volume in your call center, depending on how long it takes for an agent to complete the entire call process. As most of us know, call times can change every day based on many different factors such as the varying length of campaigns, the amount of information about specific products and the amount of staff on the clock.
Unlike traditional autodialers, which simply dial telephone numbers for agents, predictive dialers connect agents only to calls that are answered by people, freeing agents from the need to listen to unanswered calls, busy signals, disconnected lines, or answers from fax machines, answering machines and other automatic services.
Studies have shown that dialer software can increase call center agent talk time from 15 minutes per hour to 48 minutes per hour, or by up to 300 percent.
Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli